Storm Winds by Iris Johansen Read Free Book Online Page B

as if I were swathed in moonlight and sunlight … drinking a rainbow and becoming intoxicated on all the hues in the world. Sometimes it goes well and the feeling’s so exquisite it hurts.” She kept her gaze on the painting so she wouldn’t know if he was laughing at her. “And sometimes I can do nothing right and that hurts too.”
    “It sounds like an exceedingly painful pastime. But it’s worth it to you?”
    She nodded jerkily. “Oh, yes, it’s worth it.”
    “Something beautiful?” he asked softly.
    She finally glanced at him and found no sign of amusement in his intent regard. She nodded again. “A struggle to achieve something beautiful.”
    A brilliant smile lit his lean, dark face, and she gazed at him in fascination. Jean Marc’s thick black hair was rumpled, his white linen shirt open nearly to the waist to reveal the bandage and a glimpse of the triangle of dark hair thatching his chest. Yet, in spite of hisdisarray, he still managed to exude an air of elegance. Dear heaven, how she wanted to paint the man. She had persistently asked him to permit her to sketch him ever since he had started to mend and he had just as persistently refused her.
    “Well, I feel it my duty to rescue you from this painful pleasure,” he said. “Come and play faro with me.”
    “Shortly, I wish to finish this lit—”
    “Now.”
    “You’re fortunate that I play with you at all. You’ve grown very spoiled in recent days. But then, I think you were already spoiled before you became ill.”
    “Spoiled?” Jean Marc levered himself upright against the headboard. “
I’m
not the queen’s favorite. How could a poor bourgeois man of business become spoiled?”
    “I’m not the queen’s favorite either. She’s kind to me but it’s my mother who has her affection,” Juliette said. “And Monsieur Guilleme says there are few noblemen in France who are as rich as you are.”
    “You shouldn’t listen to gossip.”
    “Why not? You will tell me nothing of yourself. You’re like the glass in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. You reflect but reveal nothing of yourself.”
    “And it’s your duty as an artist to uncover my hidden soul?”
    “You’re laughing at me again.” She turned back to the painting. “But it’s quite true. I’ve already learned some things about you.”
    “Indeed?” His smile faded. “I’d be curious as to the nature of your discoveries.”
    “You’re spoiled.”
    “I beg to differ.”
    “You hate anyone to see you weak and helpless.”
    “Is that extraordinary?”
    “No, I feel much the same. And you’re not nearly as hard as you appear.”
    “You said that once before.” His lips twisted. “I assure you it’s not a safe assumption to make about me.”
    She shook her head. “You asked Monsieur Guilleme yesterday about the plight of the peasants in the area and gave him a purse of gold to distribute among those in need.”
    He shrugged. “Some of those poor clods attacking the carriage were walking skeletons. It was little wonder they let themselves be whipped into a frenzy.”
    She continued to enumerate. “And you bear pain much better than boredom.”
    “Now, that truth I will own. Come and play cards with me.”
    His smile was coaxing, banishing all hardness and lighting his face with rare beauty. Juliette dragged her gaze from his face and back to her canvas. “Why should I play with you when I could be painting?”
    “Because I wish it, and you’re all that’s gentle and obliging.”
    “I’m not oblig—” She stopped as she saw the wicked arch of his black brow. “The physician said you could get up for a little while tomorrow. Soon you’ll be able to do without me entirely.”
    “And you’ll go back to Versailles?”
    She nodded vigorously. “And I shall be very glad to see the last of you. You laugh at me. You take me away from my work. You make me amuse you as if I were—”
    “It was your decision to stay,” he reminded her. “I told you